kk@SUN.COM (Kirk Kelley) (08/05/88)
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 88 22:19 EDT From: Kirk Kelley <kk@Sun.COM> To: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu Subject: global self reference To those who are familiar with literature on self reference, I am curious about the theoretical nature of global self reference. Consider the following question. What is the positive rate of change to all models of the fate of that rate? Assume a model can be an image or a collection of references that represent some phenomenon. A model of the fate of a phenomenon is a model that can be used to estimate the phenomenon's lifetime. A change to the model is any edit that someone can justify, to users of the model, improves the model's validity. A positive rate of change to a model is a rate that for a given discrete unit of time, contains at least one change to the model. Hence, if the rate goes to 0, it is the end of the lifetime of that positive rate. Surely an interesting answer to this question falls in the realm of what might be called global self reference: a reference R that refers to all references to R. In our case, an interesting answer would be a model M of all models that model M. I have implemented such a model as a game that runs in STELLA (on the Mac). I have played with it as a foundation for analyzing decisions in the development of emerging technologies such as published hypertext, and such as itself. So I have some practical experience with its nature. My question is, what is the theoretical nature of global self reference? What has been said about it? What can be said about it? I can show that the particular global self reference in the question above has the curious property of including anything that attempts to answer it. -- kirk